Does your kid complain about this?

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My son is now complaining of some sensory issues during specific times in school, when the group gets too loud in a smaller space. He complains of feeling his clothes getting tighter and hotter, and feeling very tired. He says that he had been feeling like this since last year. But I guess he just now has the vocabulary and maturity to explain this to me.

Obviously the clothes are the same size and he is the one feeling tired, hot etc. Does your kid ever complain about something like this?

Caveat: I don't have any children - however, I was a little autistic boy (many!) years ago.

I strongly suspect that what he's describing are the physical manifestations of anxiety - the so-called "fight or flight" response. The heightened sensory sensitivity, sense of fatigue, feeling too hot or cold, etc. are all consistent with this.

For most non-autistic people, it probably seems that they just "know" when they're feeling anxious - the conscious awareness just seems to flow automatically from the emotional state. But in fact, that isn't how it works; bodily feelings and brain chemical levels are being monitored sub-consciously, and it's only when those physical signs are detected that an alarm bell gets rung in the conscious part of the mind. Despite those parts of the brain being only inches apart, they don't always talk to each other directly, but via these physical and chemical signs - and this is true for many different kinds of emotions.

For many autistic people, however, these bodily signs can seem quite mysterious. Our body can seem to be doing weird things without us having any idea why it's happening, because that subconscious link between the physical feelings and the emotional state which is causing them doesn't quite work as it does for other people. Even in adulthood, I can sometimes be showing signs of stress which are plainly obvious to people around me, yet be unaware that I'm anxious until it's pointed out to me, or until I make an explicit effort to analyse why my body feels as it does.

Learning to read our bodies better, so that we can label our emotional states more accurately, and associate them with possibly consequences (e.g. anxiety leading to melt-downs), can be an important skill to learn - as I discovered when I received autism-specific counselling to help me with managing my anxiety. For some autistic people, like me, the first step towards better anxiety management can be to learn how to tell in the first place that we are feeling anxious, by correctly labelling these physical signs.

Trogluddite, thank you so much for your super helpful response! This was very helpful.

Once we finish the assessment process and find out all the issues we are dealing with here, I definitely want to get him the counseling/help he needs! Right now I know it feels just like torture for him!

Granted I don't have children

But your son might have gained weight , so clothes feel tighter

Clothes sometimes shrink in the washing machine

Some medical conditions cause feeling hot (temperature)

Tell a psychologist or medical doctor

Otherwise unless you moved geographically, feeling hot sounds like a cause for concern

Sensory processing dysfunction

Yes, our son has sensory issues with clothing and sound (just like I do). Thankfully his school is sensory friendly and allows kids to wear hearing protectors whenever they feel they need to. He tells me he wears his when he has to concentrate and he's not the only kid in his class who does.

You should get your child a pair and see if that helps him first around the house to test them out and get comfortable with them and then ask the school if he could wear them during those times.

Shortfatbaldugglyman, he wears new uniforms that fit well, in an air conditioned room. We are currently in the middle of his assessment process. So I will definitely bring it up with the doctor.

Magna, he wears noise canceling headphones at home during thunderstorms. Last night I asked if he would like to wear them at school during those noisy times. He says no because he doesn’t want to have to explain to his classmates why he is wearing them. Nobody wears them in his class... But I don’t think his teacher would mind.

Today he added to the description of what he feels, as we were talking about it some more. It is very hard for him to describe these things. He said that his legs get stiff and sort of frozen in place when he feels that way. He says that it’s 50% the noise and 50% something else that he doesn’t know what is. I suspect he is worried about something, which could even be him worried about how to deal with the noise. But he can’t tell me what it is yet.

Maybe you could ask them to write it down?

Poor little guy - it really sounds like stress and anxiety, with maybe a little claustrophobia on the side. The tiredness can be a compensation to try and cope as some sort of flight response. I still get all of this as an adult in certain sensory overload situations.

The two things that work best for me: 1) reduce the sensory overload. Unfortunately, that probably means either some sort of noise cancelling device or removing himself from the situation; and 2) meditation. Some sort of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) can be of great benefit in those situations when you cannot get away.

We've got a 9yo at home who is not on the spectrum, but we are teaching her some basic meditation techniques when she gets anxious or stressed.

I hope it gets better for him soon, for both your sake.

Thank you for the responses, guys!

BiffGriff, meditation sounds interesting. Will look into it.